


Įkyri mintis

by Ninjaninaiii



Category: Hannibal (TV), Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: (for les mis), Canon Era, Canonical Character Death, Case Fic, Classism, Dr count douche hannibal von lecter with his billions of titles, Hannibal is a Cannibal, M/M, our mutual friend - Freeform, spoilers for hannibal finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-24
Updated: 2016-07-24
Packaged: 2018-07-26 12:54:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7574773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ninjaninaiii/pseuds/Ninjaninaiii
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Seine is dark and cold as it carries bodies through Paris.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Įkyri mintis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [OnWednesdaysWeStudyinPink (Yung_Mofftiss)](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=OnWednesdaysWeStudyinPink+%28Yung_Mofftiss%29).



> The Hannibal aspects are set sort of second half of season 3. The story itself has aspects crudely nicked from Dickens' _Our Mutual Friend_ , i.e. the watermen.

A cool breeze across the Seine lapped small ripples of water around the waterman’s boat as he rowed, the night air chill on his skin despite the May heat of day. The waterman did not leave his house much during the day, preferring the company of the midnight air and empty streets to the busy city baked by the sweltering sun of noon. 

Out here, on his boat, Will Graham could avoid thinking. He rowed, he breathed and he fished. Will’s eyes swept across the river in a regular motion, as if a lighthouse sweeping beams of light across crags and cliffs, illuminating danger for ships coming to harbour. His eyes caught sight of a dark shape bobbing in the dark river and he changed course with a small motion.

He was neither a lighthouse nor a fisherman, in the traditional sense of either. Coming beside his quarry, Will unfurled a length of rope, dipped his hand into the murky water and dragged out a leg. Attached to the leg, Will knew, was the body of an adult male. The size of the foot, the style of trousers… Will focused on tying a knot around the man’s knee to avoid further speculation. 

He gave the rope a strong pull, checking it would hold, before dragging the man’s body through the water so that it was closer to the boat. Close enough that Will could heft the man half into his boat, careful not to capsize, find the man’s pockets and rifle through them. A few coins, barely worth stealing. Will took the coins and pushed them deep in his own coat pockets, joining the others from the evening. 

Once the man’s clothes had been emptied, Will let the body fall back in the river, joining the other four attached to the length of rope behind his boat. Five, he thought, was enough. The sky, which had not long ago been an impenetrable black, was tinting with the first wisps of light blue dawn.

Will took up his oars and started to row. The activity was slightly more strenuous with the added weight, but Will was used to the journey; had planned his route so that by this point in the morning, it would only be a couple of minutes of rowing before he reached the bank nearest the police station.

The policeman on duty was familiar to Will, a non-descript young man who held the night-time post three or four times a week. Will knocked on the door of the small station-house with one knuckle. 

“Will,” the officer said by way of greeting. “How many tonight?”

“Five,” Will answered, eyes already scanning the walls of the room. He pointed at two of the posters. “Them. The rest are Jean Duponts.” 

The officer made note of the two names in his pocketbook before taking down the posters and joining Will back to his boat. Will watched the officer bend over the two bodies and compare the rough sketch of the poster to the water-warped body below him. The officer nodded, made another couple of notes in his pocketbook and folded the posters up to fit between its pages. “Anything in their pockets?”

Will shook his head. “Muggings, probably.”

The officer did not react, simply helped Will carry the bodies up the bank to the designated spot outside the station. A mortician would come to pick them up later. Once they had done, the policeman stepped inside the station for a second before returning with a few coins. “For yesterday. They identified two others. One was a victim of a serial murder, so there’s a larger reward.”

Will took the coins without comment and headed back to his boat. He wanted to be home before the city woke up. 

-

Inspector Javert, first class, was sat at his desk when the report came that another body matching his case had been found. Another casefile joined the ten others already lining his ever-shrinking desk. 

He had only had one thought revolving in his mind since he had arrived this morning, the revelation hitting him as he’d woken.  _ He’s eating them _ . 

Ten— no, he corrected, glancing at the newest file,  _ eleven _ bodies. Without opening it, he knew what the file would say: at first the case would not seem like it linked; the victims not related by age, race or gender and the method  so varied it was almost like the killer was working his way through a checklist. But then, the same line: a neat cut, an organ or limb removed, the cut stitched so perfectly to seem more like the embroidery of a fine pillow than any doctor’s rough work.

Javert had briefly entertained the thought that the murderer might be female, given the stitches, but waved away the gendered bias. The bodies had been dumped in the river. Men did not tend to report seeing other men carrying (what they assumed was) their drunken comrade beside the river at night. They would, Javert thought, think it highly unusual to see a woman doing the same.

He had seen the bodies when there had been only five; stripped bare, there was no evidence of bodily violence but the deadly wound, and then a cut, made post-mortem to prevent bruising. But why go through so much care, to make sure none of the bodies bruised, to stitch them up so neatly, only to dump them in the river? Javert opened each case systematically, focusing on aspects regarding the river. 

_ ‘Handed to officer by waterman at a quarter to four on tuesday, May the fourth.’ _

_ ‘Handed to officer by waterman at a little past four on wednesday, May the fifth.’ _

_ ‘Handed to officer by waterman at a half past three on friday, May the seventh.’ _

And so on, and on. Javert rebuked himself for not paying attention before; so many of their bodies tended to be pulled ashore by the watermen that he had not paid attention to the officer’s brief remarks, but now, as Javert scanned them, it seemed obvious that it was the same waterman, along the same route of the Seine, who had brought the police every single victim.

A multitude of possibilities hit Javert, even as he donned his weathered greatcoat. The waterman might have caught a glimpse of the murderer, making a dump, but would not talk until asked. The waterman, in the process of looting the corpses (as was common among them,) might have stumbled across evidence that he would not have deemed important. The waterman might be the killer, handing the bodies to the police as part of an elaborate ploy for attention. 

“Inspector,” the officer on duty greeted, with a tinge of surprise. “What can I do for you?”

Javert recognised the man as the one who had signed his name to each of the bodies, before registering that the man was about to leave the station house. Javert thought it must be about seven in the morning by now, and that this officer must have been on duty for ten or so hours by now. “You are officer Fabre?”

Fabre nodded, smartening his posture just slightly. 

“I have been investigating a number of cases that we have reason to believe have been committed by the same man.” Javert opened a case he had brought, as an example. He placed his finger on the officer’s name in the report. “Would I be correct in assuming it is the same waterman, who has brought each body to you?”

Fabre inclined his head to read his own words and nodded. “Yes, that is the time Will arrives.” 

“Will,” Javert repeated, before jotting down the name. “Surname?”

The officer shrugged. Most did not have surnames. “He speaks with an accent. I think his father is from the colonies.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

Fabre squinted as he thought, eyes on the ceiling. “No, I don’t recall him ever saying…” Fabre bit his lip in one last attempt at thought. “No. But he heads south down the river when he leaves. Not much help, I realise. I’m sorry.”

Javert shook his head. “No need. You say he arrives at the same time each evening?”

“Between three-thirty and four-thirty, depending on how many bodies he gets.” 

“Will you be on duty this evening?” 

Fabre nodded, barely suppressing a yawn. “Unfortunately.”

“I shall join you at three,” Javert said as he snapped his pocketbook closed. “I shan’t keep you from your bed any longer. Thank you for your assistance.”

Fabre smiled his greeting and Javert left, heading back to his desk to deposit the case-file, and to clear his day of his less-pressing cases. By four in the afternoon he had methodically sorted through anything not related to his case, and was ready to prepare for his evening. 

It was hot as he walked, the sun unrelenting in its heat. He could feel sweat trickle down his back, soaking his shirt until it clung to his back, pressed against his body by waistcoat and greatcoat. There was a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead, the worst of which was hidden from view by his hat, which kept his eyes in shade. Though the coat added a thickness to his attire that was not altogether pleasant, it did have the pragmatic function of hiding the sweat darkening his shirt from public view. 

The river, contaminated as it was by the sewage of the city, smelled bad on a good day. Baked as it had been by the sun, the odour was thicker; built itself like a wall of foul mist. The smell was accompanied by the thousands of tiny insects, buzzing and biting as he pushed through them. The occasional rotting corpse; whether a fish, a bird, or on one occasion, a human, made the experience, Javert thought, hellish. 

The task he had set himself, as he had sat at his desk this morning, had been to survey the banks nearest to the route Will traversed, and to make note of anything suspicious. He would simultaneously familiarise himself with roads, bridges, and escape-routes, in case of a pursuit later that night. 

The task he was setting himself at the current point in time was to prevent himself from gagging while holding his breath for as long as possible. He had tried to breath only through his mouth, but that had only served to make his mouth dry in the heat, adding a sandpaper-like tongue to his long-list of torments.

By the time the sun was setting, Javert was more than ready to take his evening meal, accompanied with as much water as he could coerce from the café’s proprietor. 

As he ate his light meal, he planned his evening. One last walk down the river, this time slower, and in the shadows, in the hopes of catching a glimpse of either the killer or Will at work. Arrive at the station house by three if he caught neither. Interrogate Will. 

A cannibal in Paris. He hoped he could clear the case before the newspapers got hold of the story, spreading not only widespread panic but spates of copycats, intrigued by the lure of cannibalism. 

Midnight came and went as Javert walked, as did several watermen and women, which made it hard to say whether Will, who Javert had never met, had a suitable alibi. 

Some of the watermen worked in pairs, Javert noted as he watched. He could not think of a reason for them to do so. Though they could share the effort of dragging the bodies behind their boats, they would have to split the reward; meaning the endeavour would only be worth something if they found as many bodies as they’d have to have done if they were alone. Perhaps they would pool their loot, in the hopes that the odds were higher of gaining should someone drown with their fortune. But even that relied on the ability to trust your partner. Who was to say these men shared their loot, even with their brothers or daughters?

_ Company _ , Javert supposed as he watched two such men hold a conversation while they rowed.  _ Loneliness _ . He made a note to check whether the waterman had a partner, though was not entirely sure what that might mean either way. If he didn’t: that he was a loner, that he could enact his murders in peace. If he did…. That there were two murderers? That he was human, and wished for a friendly face at the dead of night as he did his morbid job? Javert’s lips thinned. Preferring to work alone was not suspicious, it was fully understandable. Camaraderie was not suspicious, but it was not an alibi. 

It was almost a relief when half past three arrived and brought the waterman with it. A knock on the door and Will entered, his brows creasing as his eyes caught not one, but two pairs of police boots. Javert watched as Will’s eyes rose, appraising Javert’s face before turning towards the wall of posters, interest in the inspector fleeting. Will had not met Javert’s eye.

“Six,” the waterman said. “This one.” He pointed at a poster. “None of the others.”

Fabre made a note, and took down the poster. “This man wants to speak with you.”

The waterman nodded. “Inspector Javert.”

Javert was not surprised by the recognition. He had spent nearly a decade cultivating fear in the Parisian population, its criminals his primary target. He cut to the chase. “You have been paid in the last fortnight for your assistance in finding several bodies in what we believe to be a single case. Do you recognise the victims I speak of?”

Wordless, Will nodded. 

“Good.” Sometimes, the watermen found so many, and their minds were so addled by drink, that they could not tell day from night let alone body from body. But, in the last half hour, Fabre had told Javert of the almost mystic ability this waterman had in identifying bodies, scanning the crudely drawn missing posters for no more than a couple of seconds before correctly naming each one. Never once had he been wrong. 

Mystic, Javert thought, was not correct. Instead, suspicious. The man hauled bodies from a muddy river and could recognise the pallid faces from sketches. Or, he identified his victims before killing them and tied the bodies behind his boat to give the effect of a dumping. 

But why take organs from some, Javert countered, and not from others? No, Graham could not have killed every one of the bodies he had brought to the police. There were not enough hours in the day to meticulously murder over five citizens a night, nor could he have staged as many suicides without courting some kind of suspicion. 

So, perhaps he was mixing his own victims with the evidence of others.

“Have you noticed anything suspicious about the bodies?”

“I don’t like looking at them.” 

Javert could hear a disgusted truth in the man’s tone.  _ But, if so, then:  _ “Why are you a waterman?”

“My father was a sailor. I like to row.”

“There are plenty of professions where one might row,” Javert said. “Why have you not joined the navy?”

“I do not like to kill.” Will said, his accented French hard to localise. It made him sound like a provincial, his patched clothing completing the look. His hair was dirty, his face a scruff of unmanaged beard. Javert had jailed many killers with the same look.

“Where are you from?” 

“Paris.”

Javert felt a twitch of anger. “You do not have the accent of a Parisian.” 

Will did not flinch. “I was raised by my father,  who was from Louisiana,” Will replied. “But,” the waterman said, and Javert was taken aback by the change in voice, even in one word. “The watermen trust a provincial more than a Parisian.” It was said in clear, merchant-class French, without any hint of the rough criminal Will looked. 

It was Fabre who reacted first, evidently horrified to find his acquaintance, a man he’d shared a few moments with in silent, mutual respect, had not been the man he thought he was. Javert levelled the officer a silent command, and Fabre stilled, forcing his face into a neutrality, resuming his transcription of the conversation.

“You said your father was a sailor,” Javert stated, suspicious. Sailors would not teach their sons to speak as higher-classed merchants did. Sailors were among those who visited prostitutes, whose lives were a series of taverns and women.

“He was.” Will paused. “I have not always been a waterman.” His voice was slipping into a keen middle-ground. Rough and unpolished, but not, Javert thought with a tinge of annoyance, uneducated. Criminal. The son of a whore, most likely spawned in a tavern, speaking like a banker or a lawyer. A respectable part of society. 

But then, a flicker of recognition. A spark like a flint hitting stone. A man who had offered the police a succinct breakdown of the recent trend in relying on phrenology. 

Phrenology had been rising in the British justice system as a method of determining a criminal’s character from his looks. In France, it had been accused of promoting atheism, materialism and radical religious views, but that had still not stopped officers from relying on the excuse: it was deterministic, and easy to uphold. If a criminal looked like a criminal, he probably was one. Javert ground his teeth, recognising what he himself had done not a minute before. Categorised the waterman as criminal because of his accent, his look. Javert despised Phrenology, but even without the fancy name, he was still a practiser of it. 

William Graham, an American raised in France, an honorary inspector under Gisquet. A criminal that hunted criminals. Javert recalled his distaste at finding out Graham’s methods. To think like a criminal was a sure way to catch one. To empathise with them was to announce one’s true nature. A true innocent could not empathise with a criminal.

Graham could see the recognition, Javert knew, and there seemed to be some lamentation in Graham’s features, perhaps of a cover, blown. The expression was one he had not seen in an age: it was not the face of a criminal caught wearing a false face, but of a criminal, resigned, acknowledging the necessity to return to his name.

This man bore no physical resemblance to Jean Valjean, his skin and hair lighter, his very build nearly half the conman’s size, but the effect of recognition seemed the same. Javert repressed his own reaction to the parallels. Why would a man like the previously renowned Inspector Graham share the same attitude as the previously renowned Mayor Madeleine? The answer was simple. Graham was a criminal, and he knew Javert had caught him.

“A neat cut, an organ or limb removed, the incision sewn together so neatly it could almost have been embroidered.” 

Javert’s eyes solidified, icy, on Graham’s own, bent, gaze. Still Graham did not look at him. Graham had not, Javert realised, told a lie. He did not have to  _ like  _ looking at the bodies to do so, and to see the  _ modus operandi _ of the killer. 

An easy liar, highly intelligent, Javert could see why Graham had been an asset to the police. “Inspector,” he said, disliking internal politics but finding himself incapable of sparing Graham the backhanded compliment.

“Inspector?” Fabre repeated, aghast. He looked between the two men, dumbstruck.

“Ex-” Graham added, entirely for Fabre’s sake even as he directed the words towards Javert. “As the Inspector knows. I was dismissed.” 

“Dismissed,” Fabre echoed, before repeating, even more bewildered, “Inspector?”

“If you cannot keep your wits about you,” Javert warned, not sparing the man a glance, “You will leave us to our conversation, officer.”

Fabre shut his mouth, giving the pair a final, disbelieving look before resolutely standing where he was, a silent witness. 

Before Javert could continue with his interrogation, Graham looked up, and met Javert’s eye. Javert was hit by the sudden sensation of it: Graham knew he cultivated suspicion by keeping his glance averted, but he must also know the piercing feel of the opposite, how Javert felt speared by the sudden attention. “I know who did it,” Graham said, keeping Javert’s eye until Javert knew Graham was telling him the truth. Then, much to Javert’s displeasure, Graham discarded him, his glance falling back towards the floor.

-

The house was large, and beautiful, the ancient stone ornate even underneath the trickling ivy, the garden like a fairy-tale behind its spiralling iron gate. It was a residential property in Paris, but it gave the feel of a kingly castle, untouchable and forbearing. 

Javert had assembled a team of officers to scout the house in the last week, but though it had been confirmed that a single man, in his middle-ages, had been glimpsed on the fringes of the property, none had seen him, nor anyone else, enter or leave the house through either of the gates that led to the street.

Which could only mean, Javert thought, that there were secret passages in the property, common among houses like this, built for hidden affairs and covert operations among the wealthier criminal.

Two officers opened the gates, and the house did not stir. Javert had placed himself by one of the side-streets he expected the criminal might escape from. 

He did not expect the criminal to open the door to the police-officers. 

Javert could not see the conversation, stood as he was a street away, nor could he hear it happen. Instead, he stood guard, every sense on high alert, waiting for a scuffle, or a creak, a door opening, and a criminal scurrying.

It was a long time later that Javert heard any movement. He had begun to worry that his officers had been taken out at the door, and that the criminal had slipped away unseen from the front door.

Footsteps. Two sets. Police boots. Unhurried. Javert pulled himself from the shadows.

Javert did not have to vocalise his question for the officers to understand. “He allowed us in, Inspector, and so we looked around. No sign of anything,” one said, a trustable man Javert had worked with on operations like this before. “We checked the cellar, and every room for hidden doors, but…” The officer showed his empty palms, as if signifying the empty house. “Nothing worthy of suspicion.”

Javert wished to barge back into the man’s house, to investigate himself, to tear down walls. Then, a hint of self-restraint and a half-formed realisation. Graham. He lied easily, and empathised with killers.

Silent, he stalked back to the Préfecture de Police, roiling under his unphased demeanor. There was no knowing when he would next see Graham. The man could disappear, easily, vanishing from Paris and leaving his recognisable  _ MO  _ as a cold case on Javert’s desk. He could shave, buy a new costume, comb his hair and become a new man, with a new voice to match. 

“You didn’t go to the house yourself,” a voice said, as Javert entered the office. 

Graham. He was sat at Javert’s desk, in Javert’s chair, one elbow on the armrest.Graham was watching him, assessing his movements in a way that made Javert feel like a hunted beast. Graham had shaved, and was wearing a clean shirt underneath a pristine waistcoat, a cravat around his neck. He was wearing spectacles. He looked young, and intelligent. Javert felt something like disappointment in Graham’s voice. 

“No.”

“You should have been the one to open the door,” Graham said. “Now he’ll have disappeared.”

“I don’t understand.” Javert swallowed the admission. It was the quickest way to escape Graham’s riddles.

“You would have, if you’d been the one to open the door.” 

Javert took three steps towards his desk, angry. By the fifth, he felt bested. He emptied the pockets of his greatcoat onto his desk in a muted anger, placing the items down in a methodical beat, refraining himself from throwing any of it at Graham. He put down his pocketbook last, then, agitated, picked it up, flicking through it until he got to the address.  _ Rue Plumet _ , Graham had told him, and Javert stared at it, not understanding its significance.

-

With the return of Will Graham came the return of the Inspector’s partner, a man even Javert respected. The Lithuanian Count, Hannibal Lecter, who had helped on many a case as a top physician. Javert was introduced to the Count by Graham, which rather tarnished the meeting. Javert could not understand what would possess Lecter to keep such close company with the kind of criminal everyone knew Graham to be.

“Doctor Lecter is the one who gave me the address,” Graham informed Javert. “The Rue Plumet.”

Javert felt his spine straighten, his shame forcing him into an outward appearance of respectability to make up for his faults. “I did not know,” Javert said, bowing. “I am greatly ashamed of myself, for not acting as I should have done.”

Twice in as many weeks, Javert was hit by a wave of  _ déjà vu _ . Him, apologising for a misstep. A calm, forgiving smile. Monsieur Madeleine had told Javert he had only been doing his duty. Lecter’s smile seemed more genuine. “Perhaps next time.”

Javert felt the Count’s words like a blessing and a stab, all at once. His failure acknowledged, his ability to do better recognised. Madeleine had been full of fake forgiveness. The Count was not. 

Javert had an officer bring two chairs to his desk. Though it vexed him to share a case, he respected the Count, and with that came the grudging tolerance of Graham. 

Lecter, with his physician’s expertise, poured over the sketches of the wounds the victims had acquired, spending long minutes on each sketch, looking to Javert as if he were drinking them in. “These drawings are magnificent,” he said, after he had appraised them all. “They are incredibly accurate.”

Of course, Javert thought, Lecter must have studied the bodies, too. He remembered rumours of Lecter’s memory, that it was impeccable. Another respectable quality in a man. 

Graham scoffed, a quiet noise perhaps only meant for himself, and again Javert took to wondering what use Lecter could possibly have with the disrespectful and frankly aggravating Graham.

“Whoever did this,” Lecter continued, the wisp of a smile playing on his lips, “Was in love.”

Javert frowned. He too, looked at the sketches. They were neat, and elaborate, but though Javert was inexperienced with the prospect of love, he was certain this did not proclaim romance in any traditional form.

“Your purpetrator,” Lecter continued, “Wished to show his intended his care, his passion.”  

“By removing organs?” Only Javert’s respect for Lecter kept him from outright dismissing the suggestion. “And, I suspect, eating them?”

The curve of Lecter’s smile was sharp, and neat, as the rest of him was. “To provide, to nourish,” Lecter said. “Is that not the most primal form of love?”

Javert imagined a perfectly plucked organ, undamaged, placed delicate on a plate, like something served at an aristocrat’s  _ soiree _ . A limb, roasted, served as one would serve a prime leg of lamb. A lover, oblivious, as a neatly-stitched body waited to be rescued from a river. 

“This sentiment,” Javert said, eventually. “I don’t understand it. The metaphor the killer is using only suggests to me that the killer’s love is imperfect. That he must steal from others what he cannot offer from himself. He is lying to himself, by pretending this is a message of love. It’s...” Javert looked for a way to phrase his contempt. “It is a hostage note. A brag. The killer thinks he already has his lover cornered. That stitching the wounds back together means he can heal whatever damage he has done to their relationship. He is wrong. He is simply obsessed, and masking it as delicacy.” 

Javert focused on the stitches keeping the side of the latest victim from splitting apart and revealing a missing kidney.  _ Love, _ Lecter had said. The way the thread puncturing skin resembled an embroidered cushion. “Criminals cannot love.”

Graham snorted again, as Lecter remained silent. Part of Javert felt mortified to have followed his tangent, leaving both Graham and Lecter to laugh at his pandering to the killer’s ridiculous taunts and attempts at imagery. Another part of Javert felt, however, like something had been answered. The killer was obsessed, and thought himself in love.

-

The victims stopped, the next night. Perhaps, Javert thought, ruefully closing the folders and marking them as ‘unsolved’, the intended lover had finally rejected the killer, and had been devoured for doing so.

Graham, confirming the news that there was no new victim, did not return to Javert’s desk, but neither did Lecter. 

Obsession. The word swum in and out of Javert’s mind as he swept the case away. No leads, no action. Loneliness. Partnership. Unsolved. Javert remembered he had not asked Graham whether he had had another waterman as a partner. 

Perhaps that was what Lecter sought in Graham. Another voice in the dark. 

-

Thoughts of the partnership subsided when May turned to June. A student insurrection. A barricade. A knife through bonds. A sewer, a ride to a mansion. A convict, changed. A bridge. A cloudy night, free of stars. The Seine.

-

A cool breeze across the Seine lapped small ripples of water around the waterman’s boat as he rowed, the night air chill on his skin despite the June heat of day. There were many bodies in the river tonight. The city was bleeding, and its students had died with their rings on their fingers, and their watches in their pockets.

Tonight, especially, Will Graham did not look at the ghostly faces of the bodies he trailed behind his boat, knowing that some of the faces would be half as old as he, some even younger. There were already seven young men tied to his boat. He glanced towards the sky, the time not immediately obvious because of the clouds covering the moon. It was a grim night to die, he thought.

There was no shadow cast as he passed underneath the next bridge. 

He’d heard watermen talk about it, sometimes, as he’d rowed past hushed conversations. That they’d never considered the bodies they carried human, until they’d seen one crack as it hit the river. 

There were plenty of bridges in Paris, and plenty of reasons to jump from one. 

There was a crack, an inward pull of water, then small waves of river splashing against Will’s boat. In his panic, he could only sit still, as if his moving might fracture something, something precious— then he cleared his mind and leapt from his boat, diving with his arms outstretched, aiming as accurately as possible for the centre of the splash.

This person, whoever it was, had made their decision to end their life, and something within Will told him to respect that, to surface from the furious pull of the water while he still lived. He could wait for the body to surface, the air in the lungs acting as a floatation device, and pull the unhappy soul from the river as he always did.

His fingers, sifting through the silty water, glanced against solidity. Will scrambled, his own lungs screaming for air, to find purchase, and pull. He was disorientated. There was no way to tell which way was up, no moon as a beacon, only black dirt, the water stinging his eyes, forcing them closed. 

He let out a short burst of air and caught the bubbles with his hand. He followed them up, up, kicking against the water, dragging the corpse up, up— A hand brushed his arm and he startled, knocking the rest of the air out of his lungs. The rope, he realised. The bodies he’d tied to his boat. He followed the line, feeling consciousness slip. Then, suddenly, air. He gasped, then choked, his throat filling with splashes of water, sending painful coughs through his body.  

He grasped at the wood of the boat and pulled, the boat lurching wildly as he floundered into it, one hand still grasping the collar of the corpse. 

_ Pull,  _ he thought, so he did, pulling as hard as he could, legs bracing against the side of his boat to leverage the man up, and over, into the boat on top of him. 

Will choked again. Breathing was painful, nearly impossible. He lay for seconds, feeling all power leeched from his muscles into the cold wood of the boat.

The man was heavy, his clothes waterlogged.  _ A greatcoat _ , Will thought.  _ In June _ . 

He startled, forcing himself to sit up, forcing himself to push the man around so his head lay in his lap, bearing his face.  _ Javert. _

Too late, Will glanced at the bridge, as if he might catch a glimpse of the man who had killed him, pushed him into the river. No-one. 

But… something. Will squinted, then scrambled to find his spectacles, deep within one of his pockets. A hat, he realised, once they were on. Javert’s hat. Ashen with realisation, Will’s gaze dropped back down to Javert. Not murder. Suicide.

Like a man trying to escape a rabid dog, Will pushed the corpse off himself, half standing in the boat and allowing the corpse to fall, heavy, on the wood. 

A splutter. 

Will stood, suspended, hands gripping the edges of the boat as the corpse hacked out a harsh cough, sludge and water spewing from its mouth. 

Will blinked. Sitting down, as slowly as he dared, he took up his oars and rowed, careful not to touch the half-drowned man in the bottom of his boat.

-

Will sent a Gamin hurtling into the dark streets of Paris, a handsome reward speeding him on. Ten minutes later, the dark streets spat out Hannibal Lecter. Will had not known who else to call.

“The Inspector,” Hannibal noted, with a slight quirk to his voice.

“I didn’t kill him.” Will dragged Javert’s body from his boat, the unconscious man giving short bursts of coughs every other second, the only proof he was alive. 

“No,” Hannibal said, as though entertained by the spectacle. 

“Help him.” Will knew that to be saved from drowning was a long process. Javert would not be safe from secondary drowning for days, yet.

“Why?” Hannibal asked, as if genuinely interested. 

“Because,” Will said, “I want you to.” 

Hannibal did not move.

“Becuase,” Will tried again, “It is not obsession.”

Still, Hannibal was motionless. 

“Because it will be interesting,” Will said, searching Hannibal’s face for signs of agreement, “To see what they do, from this.”

Hannibal smiled. He tugged at his trousers so he could crouch, and draped one of Javert’s arms around his shoulder. Will mirrored him, on the other side. They walked, slowly, to No. 7, Rue de l'Homme-Armé, dragging the half-dead Inspector between them.

-

There was a knock on Valjean’s door. He steeled himself. The knock was calm, and official. It was Javert. He felt his heart thudding in his chest. It was time. He could surrender, now. Cosette had Marius. He could complete the chase. 

He opened the door, his eyes drawn down by a cough at his feet. “Dear God— Javert?”

-

It was not a year later that Will found himself leading Hannibal towards a bridge he had once seen a man jump from. Will, drenched in blood. Some of it his. It was drying against his skin, his shirt wet through. He loosened his cravat. It had been soft, when he’d tied it this morning. It suited Hannibal’s tastes. 

They were both panting. There was a body, cut and bleeding itself dry like a slaughtered pig, only meters from where they stood. Hannibal’s eyes glinted, sharp, knives themselves. Obsession. Partnership. Together.

Will’s arms formed an iron ring as he dragged the both of them down, and into the Seine. A waterman would find them, later, and Javert, back on his feet, would link them to the bloodied remains on the bridge he himself had jumped from. 

Hannibal didn’t struggle. 

**Author's Note:**

> Imagine, in the spaces, a really good fix-it, sick-fic where Valjean nurses Javert back to life, Javert doesn't believe that Valjean wasn't the one to save him, and then Javert's realisation that Hannigram were the cannibal killers. I imagine he's pretty pleased with himself about how on-point his burns were. 
> 
> If anyone has any interest in Dickensian (or just 19th century) queer theory, I'd recommend Eve Sedgewick's 'Between Men', especially the chapter about Our Mutual Friend, which explains why the 'iron ring' is hecka gay. Also, Holly Furneaux's 'Queer Dickens' and why fix-it fics/ healing your dudebro best friend was also hecka gay. 
> 
> The title is google translated Lithuanian: "Obsession". 
> 
> If it isn't obvious I know nothing about the USA in the 19th century. Is Will #canon white in this fic? Or have we gone for a casual re-interpretation of ethnicity because of 'Louisiana French'? This fic would be a lot different if Will's mum wasn't white. But, equally, this started as a crack fic about Will x Javert. Willvert. Jail. Javill. Cruella Javill.


End file.
